This is a traditional dance performance. Traditional dance at a festival showcasing new artistic trends? Yes, you read that right. Volvamos al baile (Let’s Dance Again) argues that risk and innovation are not always about looking ahead; sometimes the boldest gestures are found in the past. Such is the case of Ayora fandango, a traditional dance from the Cofrentes Valley that was banned and suppressed under the Franco dictatorship. Unlike other, more modest folk dances, Ayora fandango is unmistakably a dance of seduction, which the regime viewed as explicit sexuality and an intolerable display of female initiative.

We know all too well that ingenuity almost always finds ways of outwitting censorship, and that desire itself cannot be censored. But we also know that censorship triumphs when what has been censored is forgotten. If nobody remembers Ayora fandango, or it is no longer distinguishable from any other folk dance, censorship will have won.

Born in Ayora, choreographer Inka Romaní invites us to revisit this dance again and again, as many times as necessary, gradually unearthing the layers that was concealed for decades inside the bodies of the village’s grandmothers, and that is now ready to be reclaimed and performed afresh by new generations. Because a dance is never just a dance: it is a way of defining the boundaries of our world, our community and our freedom. Every step we lose is another piece of the world that has gone forever.

Irreverent and meticulous in equal parts, Inka places her own body at the heart of a piece that defies expectations, beginning with something highly specific and anecdotal before exploring broader questions of identity, resilience and freedom. This return to traditional and popular forms as a way of reimagining folklore through a contemporary lens can also be found in works such as Taranto aleatorio by La Chachi, Oxímoron by Checho Tamayo, and Angelical by María Jurado.